It was a freak bar. A party.
"Want to get high, Deary?"
"Want to get lost?"
Yes. Getting lost was the idea. Here. Now. Gone.
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna take you higher."
He was six three, at least. Two-fifty or so. Certainly not fat. Definitely all man. I didn't know his name, but I'd seen him flashing edges earlier in the night. Nice edges, too. Not like some of the ones I'd seen, crusted in the blood of previous victims.
I was hunting that night, I admit. Hunting for danger, pain, sex. Hunting to get rid of the lonely that still floated around my shoulders like a cloak.
The back room was dark, as they always were. He flicked his edge open and closed again, watched my eyes dance. In a second, less, he was on me. Edge at my throat, breath in my ear. I could hear the sounds of people around us. The hush of conversation, turned laughter, turned lust.
"Touch yourself."
"No." I was no pushover Vic, "Make me." It hung in the air.
My refusal, his still latent violence. Would he cut me? Would he spill me on the floor for the blood-sluts to lick up? Yes. Yes, he would.
Red. Welling up of life, pouring forth. This is getting lost. Gone.
~
Morning came. I woke to a mass of bruises. My arm was swollen with bite marks. Blood had been drawn at my throat and down my thighs. His suckling mouth still pressed phantom kisses along my body.
The shower I took was achingly cold and the water that circled the drain was tinged with pink/ Getting dressed hurt, the turtleneck pressing against edge slices.
Work. Yes, work. Never get lost before a long day at the office. Sometimes I even follow my good advice, sometimes.
~
The night enclosed me again. It was stiflingly hot. The moisture clung to my hair and clothes. I was outside the bar again.
Rarely did I visit the same place two nights in a tow. Everyone knew me, had heard of me, but I was a regular nowhere. I was into getting lost, not making friends. But enemy's, apparently, do not need physical presence to breed animosity.